


Waterlogged and Drunk on Love

by Jae_Cillian



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Night Before Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26694784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jae_Cillian/pseuds/Jae_Cillian
Summary: The night before their wedding, Jason and Roy are both regretting sticking to the tradition of not seeing each other beforehand.
Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Comments: 8
Kudos: 126





	Waterlogged and Drunk on Love

The keycard shook in Dick’s grasp as he swiped it through the reader. He yanked on the hotel room’s door handle, fumbling and dropping his phone in his haste. “Jay?” he called out as he stooped to grab the cellphone. The last message he received was still displayed on the screen: a simple _sos_ from _Little Wing_.

“Jason?” he called again, louder, hastily sweeping through the small hotel room. A sitting area and only a single bed—Jason’s luggage tossed on the mattress, the garment bag which should have safely held Jason’s tuxedo zipped open and empty—yet Dick saw no sign of his little brother.

But a sudden splash of water had Dick spinning back toward the bathroom. The door was cracked open, and he pushed it even further in. “Jay?” he softly questioned, arching his head around the doorframe as he felt around the wall for the light switch. When he finally flipped it on and a blinding light fell upon the white-tiled space, he blinked at the scene laid out before him.

What the hell happened in the span of a half hour since he and his other siblings called it a night and dropped Jason off to get some rest before his big day?

“Jason, buddy,” Dick approached the bathtub, squatting down and holding onto its ledge, “what’s wrong?”

Water sloshed over the lip of the tub—lukewarm where it wet Dick’s fingers—as Jason sunk lower. His legs were bent sharply at the knees, the burgundy color of his slacks darkened to a murky brown in the water. The matching tuxedo jacket was unbuttoned, and the end of Jason’s black tie swayed with the subtle waves. God, he even had his oxfords on.

Blue-green eyes—so vivid and bright, moisture making the irises shine like sea glass—turned to look at Dick. But their brightness quickly looked away as he raised a wine bottle from where it rested between the tub and his thigh. He brought it to his lips, taking a healthy swig from its spout. Then Jason held it to his chest, idly working his jaw.

“I love Roy,” Jason finally whispered.

Dick repressed a sharp snort of laughter, because yeah, that was kinda the whole point of tomorrow, wasn’t it? “Yeah, I know, Little Wing. Everyone knows.”

Jason abruptly sat up. The wine bottle tipped forward, spilling some of its contents into the water before Dick lunged to grab it. “No, you don’t,” Jason sharply said. Narrowed eyes—fiery and piercing—softened with the deep sigh that had Jason sinking back into the water. “I love him. He’s perfect and beautiful and everything I never thought I’d have. I wanna make him happy. I wanna make Lian happy. God, I wanna be her dad, like officially, and I never, _never_ , thought I’d ever want something like that. But Roy, god Roy—” Jason’s head tipped back, the tile cold against his skull, and he smiled, small and soft and with more adoration than Dick had ever seen “—makes me feel so damn domestic. Normal even, like I never died and took a dip in that damn green goo, and that maybe, maybe I’m allowed to want these things.”

With a long, drawn-out groan, Jason slid down the tile and folded himself further into the small tub until he dunked his head beneath the water. He resurfaced enough for the subtle waves to lap at his ears, thick droplets of water clinging to his closed eyelashes. “I just wanna marry him,” he whined.

Dick settled himself on the floor, back against the toilet and legs stretching out along the tub. He glanced at the label on the wine bottle and chuckled. _Non-alcoholic_ , huh? “You are marrying him.”

“It’s not enough, though.”

“What more is there?”

“I don’t know. I feel like I should get his face tattooed on my ass or something. Like _Property of Roy Harper_.”

Dick threw his head back with a deep, body-wracking guffaw. “For the love of all that is holy, please never say that to Roy, because he will hold you to it.”

Jason shrugged. “If he asked me to, I would. I’d do anything for that man. Fuck, I’d die for him, and I mean, I hated it the first time around, but for him, I’d get beaten to death all over again.”

Dick couldn’t hold back his grimace, but he did manage to repress the flinch that shivered up his spine at the mention of Jason’s death. “Why are you always so dramatic?” he asked, exasperated as he reached into the bath and splashed his brother with water.

Jason sputtered, his limbs flailing half the tub’s content over the edge and onto the bathroom floor, as he sat up. “What the hell, man?”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that?” Dick held Jason’s gaze as he took a swig from the wine bottle. He was too damn sober for this. “Roy would kick your ass if he ever heard you say that.”

Petulant and stubborn, Jason crossed his arms, but he looked little more than an angry cat drenched in the rain. “I’d still do it.”

With a roll of his eyes, Dick anchored the wine bottle against the floor and used it as leverage to push himself up. “Of course, you would; but maybe keep that out of your vows.” He stepped to set the wine on the counter, and his sneakers squeaked on the wet tile. His pants were damp and sticking to his skin, but at least he wasn’t in his wedding attire.

“Are you ready to be done with…” Dick waved his arm in the general direction of the waterlogged Jason and the bathtub, “…whatever this was?”

Jason took a long moment to think about it. Then he glanced at the bottle on the counter. “Is there wine left?”

With a sigh, Dick said, “Yeah.”

“Then no. Hand it over, Goldie.”

* * *

It would’ve been faster for Kori to physically haul Roy to his hotel room and toss him on the bed and call it a night, but no. The man himself insisted on taking a stroll back to the hotel and breathing in the crisp night air on his last night as a single man. Said it would sober him up, even though he’d had nothing but Shirley Temples and water all night. Still he dragged his feet, staggered and stumbled, and leaned his weight against Kori as if she needed to take him to an AA meeting.

“I wanna see Jason,” Roy whined for the millionth time in the last five minutes, and yeah, Kori supposed he was drunk on something else. Every time a streetlamp caught his eyes, the green absolutely glowed. The irises sparkled and shone, so starry-eyed it might have been literal with the tiny flecks of gold near the pupils.

“Then let’s go see him,” Kori said as she guided Roy through the hotel lobby and toward the elevators.

“Can’t,” he whined, his whole body deflating and sinking with his shoulders. Kori tightened her grip around his waist and heaved him upright, less he fall face first into the closed elevator doors.

“So you’ve been saying. But I don’t understand. His room is right across the hall from yours,” Kori said, her patience growing thin, because if she had to hear one more time that Roy missed Jason, she’d deliver Roy to him gift-wrapped and disappear back to Tamaran until this honeymoon phase of theirs passed.

“I promised.”

“Why would you do that?”

With a tilt of his head, Roy pursed his lips in thought. “Cause it’s romantic, maybe?”

“It’s dumb.”

With a loopy chuckle, Roy said, “Yeah, it is. But it’s a tradition, and Jason wanted to do it.” Roy sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it in a dramatic sigh. “But I don’t like it. I want to kiss him so much right now. I want to hold him and tell him I love him and read him every draft of my vows except the final one.”

So, blissed out and in love, vulnerable and tender with his every word, Kori smiled at her friend. She didn’t understand most earthly traditions, and this one sounded especially stupid, but she supposed it was rather sweet of Roy to endure it for Jason. When the elevator dinged at their floor, Kori led Roy down the hallway, listening to him blubber on and on about how much he loved his soon-to-be husband. They stopped in front of Roy’s hotel room, and Roy quieted just long enough to swipe the keycard and unlock the door.

“You’ll see him tomorrow. It’s not that long to wait,” Kori said. She stood in the doorway and watched Roy grumpily kick off his shoes and shrug out of his thin jacket.

“But it feels like an eternity.”

“I’m sure it does. But if you go to bed, it’ll be morning in no time.”

Roy groaned, long and low, as he dragged his feet and threw himself face first onto the mattress. Barely five seconds passed before he whined out, “It’s not working. All I can think about is my Jaybird.”

“Try harder.”

“I am!”

Kori hummed before turning for the hallway. “Good night,” she called, and the answering groan had her shaking her head with an amused fondness.

She pulled the door shut with a firm click of the lock just as the one directly across the hallway opened. Kori half-expected it to be Jason, and she raised a thin eyebrow at Dick as he exited. “Rough night?” she asked with a puff of laughter, her glowing gaze sweeping from Dick’s wet hair and damp clothes to the dripping wet tuxedo draped over his arm.

Dick heaved an exasperated sigh, but there was a tenderness to the smile that accompanied his words. “You have no idea.”

Kori glanced back to Roy’s hotel room, and his non-drunken blubbering for the past half hour echoed in her skull. “Oh, I think I do.”

* * *

A quiet rapping at the door jolted Roy out of bed. He hadn’t actually fallen asleep. Couldn’t really, not with his thoughts swimming with nothing but Jason and their future and becoming a happy little family with him and Lian.

He stumbled to the door, tripping over his strewn shoes and his suitcase, because he knew who was on the other side. He didn’t even need to hear the soft, “Roy, you awake?” to know it was Jason standing in the hallway.

“Roy, I want to see you.”

Roy reached for the door handle, but his fingers clasped into a fist, and he bowed forward to press his forehead against the door. “No,” he said weakly, “we promised.”

“But I miss you.” So quiet and endearing—the tone reserved only for Roy and his little girl, only for them—prodded at Roy’s resolve. “I just want to see your face.”

Roy groaned as he pressed his knuckles harder against the door. “You’re the one who wanted to follow this dumb tradition.”

“You… you think it’s dumb?”

Roy nodded against the door but then remembered that Jason couldn’t see him. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly.

“Then why’d you agree to it?”

“Because it was important to you, and I love you.”

A long silence settled in the hallway, and Roy desperately wished to sneak a glance through the peephole; but that’d be a breach of the tradition. So, he waited. He waited long enough that he thought Jason might have gone back to his own room. A pang of longing ached in his chest, and Roy’s fist unclenched and his fingers uncurled to press against the door.

But then Jason said his name, so firm and determined—knowing exactly what he wanted. “Roy, open the door. I take it back. Screw tradition. I want to spend tonight with you.”

Roy flung open the door so fast he nearly smacked himself in the nose with it. And the moment he laid eyes upon Jason—upon his _Jaybird_ , with damp hair curling up at the ends, seeing his eyes softening with a lopsided smile, standing there in a tank top and a pair of Roy’s sweatpants—Roy exhaled a silent gasp, one of awe at the sheer beauty of his partner, because god Jason always looked stunning. The curls of white hair, the scars marking his arms and disappearing down his chest, the green highlights that brightened his eyes. God, Roy loved this man. He loved Jason more than he could put into words.

So, he didn’t even try to. Instead, Roy grabbed Jason’s wrist and pulled him across the threshold. With breathless laughter on his tongue, he kissed Jason, feeling the softness of his lips and the warm puffs of air escaping them both. They barely remembered to kick the door closed behind them before they stumbled to the bed, never once pulling more than a hairsbreadth apart.

* * *

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.” The litany of swears fell from Dick’s mouth with increasing urgency as he upturned every corner of Jason’s hotel room for even the slightest clue as to where he’d gone. His cellphone had been left behind, and his luggage was untouched from where Dick saw it last night.

“So… who’s gonna tell Roy that his fiance's flown the coop?”

Dick spun on Tim. “Jason wouldn’t do that.”

“Except he totally did.”

Dick grasped for words and an answer. His fingers clutched at his cellphone as he waited for a call from Babs saying she found him. Except she had been in the middle of getting ready for the wedding with the other girls so she said it’d take a little while before she could access the hotel’s cameras. And that had been… a little while ago. What was taking her so long?

“Listen, someone should tell Roy. It’s not fair to keep it from him.”

“I know that,” Dick snapped, raking his hand through his hair, grasping and pulling and trying to jostle some idea out of his head. “I know, but listen. You didn’t see Jason last night. He wouldn’t just—”

The ring of Dick’s cellphone cut him off, and he answered it in a flash. “Where is he?”

Barbara’s answer came laced with laughter. “Go ask Roy.”

“What?”

“Trust me. Just go ask Roy.” And then Barbara hung up.

Dick stared at the blank screen of his phone for a long moment before he rushed across the hallway. He knocked at Roy’s hotel room and then waited.

From the other side, he could hear someone stumbling toward the door, and when it finally opened, Dick wanted to smack himself. Bleary-eyed and with wicked bedhead, Jason yawned and scratched at his stomach. “Ah shit, we overslept, huh?”

Dick sucked in a deep breath to steady himself. He thought it would be enough to dampen the exasperation that tightened his gut. But still, he dragged a hand down his face and muttered, “Goddammit, you guys!”

“The hell’s your problem?”

From where he stood leaning against the doorframe of Jason’s hotel room, Tim helpfully piped up, “You almost gave Big Bird there a heart attack. He thought you got cold feet and ran.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?” Jason deadpanned. Suddenly wide awake, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Dick. “I fucking love Roy.”

“I know! I didn’t—” Dick gave up with a heaved sigh. He grabbed Jason’s wrist and dragged him across the hall to his own room. “I brought you a new tuxedo.”

“Wait, what happened to your tuxedo?”

Jason froze, forcing Dick to a stop as well. They both looked back to see Roy poking his head out his room. “Uh…” Jason scratched at his neck and looked off to the side, a light dusting of color darkening his cheeks. “Well…”

Oh, Dick thought, revenge would taste so very sweet. “I’ll tell you all about it during my toast later.”


End file.
